Food Tours · Tour

Hell's Kitchen First, Then Eight Hundred Acres to Walk It Off

Four and a half hours, two walking tours, nine guests. It starts at a Japanese barbecue restaurant on West 44th between Eighth and Ninth, two streets from the theatre marquees and in a neighbourhood most visitors cross without stopping. Hell's Kitchen was tenements, longshoremen and the gangs that ran the piers, and it kept the name and the reputation long after the docks went quiet. What arrived afterwards is what you eat: a spread of cuisines packed into a few blocks, because successive immigrant populations opened kitchens here and the rents stayed low enough for them to stay. Your guide tells the old stories, the characters and how organised crime shaped the place, between the tastings. Then Central Park, which is the other half of the ticket and the reason the tour runs long. Eight hundred and forty-three acres, opened in the 1850s, entirely designed rather than preserved: every hill, lake and outcrop placed on what was swamp and rock, and every road sunk below eye level so the traffic would not be visible from the paths. Your guide walks you through it with the stories New Yorkers tell each other about it, and the walk ends at Central Park West and 72nd Street. Water included, food included, alcohol extra. Minimum two people. Vegetarian with notice at booking; vegan, kosher, nut allergies, dairy-free and gluten-free cannot be handled. Runs in all weather, with an indoor option to ask about if it turns.